A Look at Hong Kong’s Housing Crisis

National Geographic recently took a look at the ‘coffin cubicle’ housing crisis in Hong Kong.

In the United States we glamorize living in small space. The tiny-house trend is in full effect here, and it has not only become popular to downsize into smaller spaces, but in some cases, it is a preferred way of life. This ideal isn’t shared across the world however, as National Geographic recently proved in their article about the housing crisis in Hong Kong.

A photographer named Benny Lam went to Hong Kong to shed some light on the situation, and the photos are nothing short of heartbreaking. He spent four years visiting sub-divided flats, some that were as small as 15-square-feet.

The problem is that Hong Kong is terribly over-populated at 7.5 million people. There is no land left to develop in the city, so squatter huts (self-explanatory), cage homes (where the private living spaces are separated by cage-wire), and coffin cubicles (tiny, illegally sub-divided apartments) have become a sad reality for over 200,000 people.

As a result, there are thousands of people living in spaces as small as 6’ X 2.5’ without even enough space to stand up. In many of these spaces, the toilet and kitchen are one and the same, and there may only be enough spare room for a single bed.

Lam hopes that by sharing these photos, it will shed some light on the housing crisis and push people to intervene and create solutions to the problem. One thing is for sure though; we have a lot to be thankful for in the US, with our sprawling back yards, and 2,500 square-foot homes.